


Contemplation

by mgsmurf



Series: Season 8 extra stuff [1]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Coda, F/M, Season 8 Ep 4, Spoilers, Wine loosens Lannister lips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-28 15:17:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18759040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mgsmurf/pseuds/mgsmurf
Summary: Brienne shook her head. “You are never this quiet, surely something has been on your mind.” She remembered Jaime's non-stop talking on the road they had shared, and something was wrong if he did not have any words to say.A possible missing scene from the middle of Season 8 Ep 4 when Jaime and Brienne are both in Winterfell after that first time, in which Brienne tries to get Jaime to tell her more about what might be on his mind.





	Contemplation

**Author's Note:**

> This does not contain spoilers for the episode ending, but does not write it off either. Mention of J/C is in the past and not the best light. And sorry, not smutty.

“What are you thinking?” Brienne tugged the furs upon her bed closer and tilted her head. 

It took Jaime a moment to turn to her and blink before replying. “Nothing.”

He sat in a chair before the fire in his trousers and shirt, his feet bare and the stump of his right buried in his unbloused sleeve. He'd let the fire die down and the room was chilly, not that he seemed to care.

Brienne shook her head. “You are never this quiet, surely something has been on your mind.” She arose and grabbed a robe to wrap around herself. While she liked he had stopped insulting her, Jaime had also be uncharacteristically quiet since coming to Winterfell. 

“I can be quiet,” he replied. 

Brienne shook her head. She remembered his non-stop talking on the road they had shared. “No. You wear words as armor.” And something was wrong if he did not have any words to say. She might wonder it was her if he had not shown her time and again his feelings. Jaime was a gentle and giving lover, and he was capable of making her body sing in a way she had not known relations between man and woman could make a body respond. She pushed such thoughts from her head less she blush from the memories of all they had done these past weeks. 

She pulled a chair up beside him and was surprised to see he held no wine. She forgot that drinking away problems seemed more his brother's way. “What happened with Cersei?” she found herself asking. Did she really want to know? They had not discussed his past lover and it had been easy for Brienne to pretend for a moment Jaime had not spent a previous lifetime in someone else's arms. 

“When?” Jaime cocked his head. “When we cockolded the king? During our childhood? The first time Cersei came to me?”

Brienne pinched her lips, tried not to think about that lifetime he and Cersei had together. “When you left for the north.” 

He sighed, shook his head. “It's... I don't know how to... explain it.” He frowned and tightened his hand on the knee of his trouser. 

She rose and moved to the door. 

“Where are you going?” Jaime furrowed his brow. 

“To get wine.” Brienne tightened her robes and tried to flatten and right her hair.

“Why?”

“It seems to loosen Lannister lips,” she replied as she left. 

Jaime had thrown more wood on the fire when she returned. He took the offered wine and drank, at least enough to steady he nerves perhaps. He did not answer her question about Cersei though. Instead, he told her about his family. He told her about the weaknesses of his grandfather, about Tywin's hatred of Tyrion and his denial about Jaime not being his true heir. About being Tyrion's only friend, about Tyrion's tragic first marriage and his part in it. He told about how he had saved his brother's life despite Cersei's desires, only to be repaid with Tyrion murdering their father. She'd known Lord Tywin was a hateful man, everyone knew that, but she did not know how much it extended to his children, even his golden heir. 

Jaime talked about growing up with aunts and uncles and cousins at Casterly Rock. He talked a bit about the bastard children he was never allowed by Cersei to show affect to. He did talk a bit of Cersei, about how memories of her had kept him sane while the Mad King burned men alive and grew more mad, about the first night Cersei had come to him and convinced him to give up his birthright, about living in fear Robert Barathon might finally figure it all out. Most of what he told her of Cersei was from when they were children, losing their mother, the lion their grandfather kept below Casterly Rock, swimming in the Sunset Seas as children. The twins' relationship had been forged in the neglect of their father and tragic death of their mother, and Cersei's control over Jaime had begun long before they were old enough to be lovers. 

Perhaps it was not what she had asked, but it reassured her to hear Jaime talk on and on. 

Jaime took a sip of his wine. “You must think all Lannisters are all lunatics.”

Brienne frowned. “How am I to know how large families are. The only family I have is my father.” She told him about losing her mother and sisters before she could remember, about what she could remember of her brother. She answered what she could about her father taking lovers but no other wife, having no other heirs. 

“He loves you though,” Jaime said, “your father.”

Brienne nodded and could not help the small smile in reply. “Yes, he does.”

“He allowed you to leave to fight with Renly,” Jaime said. “He allowed you to be who you wanted to be, accepted you for such.” He took a sip of wine. “To want your children happy, is that not what the love of a parent should do?”

Brienne gave a tight smile and nodded. She forgot sometimes that he'd had children and that in some manner he had loved them. “Perhaps someday I will get home, and he will be proud.”

“The first woman knight of Westeros, why would he not be proud?” Jaime gave a half smirk. 

She wondered if Jaime had known how much she had wanted that, to be knighted, to be knighted by the one man in the realm she could follow? She knew the smile upon her lips was wide and perhaps silly. The gleam in his eyes widened it. 

He finally looked away, took a long swallow of his wine, stared into the fire. He started and stopped talking twice before saying, “Have you ever thought you knew something... the ins and outs and details of a thing, only to suddenly find you knew nothing of it at all?” His gaze remained upon the flames. 

Brienne tightened her lips, cocked her head. “Mayhaps. Just what are you talking about Jaime?”

He shook his head, sighed, did not answer. “She called me a traitor. She threatened to kill me.” There was no need to say he spoke of Cersei. “How long have I only been hers to use? How long have I allowed myself to be used by her? Has she so fooled me more than all the rest, or worse, have I known all along and let myself be blind?”

His words were sad and pained and the anger against Cersei that burned in Brienne surprised and scared her. Jaime finally looked at her, fear and doubt in his eyes. What was she to say in response to that? Her heart pounded. The moments lingered, starring at each other, the only sound their breaths, until Jaime started to look away, hurt, rejected. Brienne shot her hand out and grabbed his right forearm, felt familiar scars beneath her fingers. 

“You don't have to be used by her anymore,” she spoke. “Have you not been your own man for awhile now?” He saved Tyrion, despite Cersei's wishes. He enabled her to save Sansa, despite Cersei's wishes. He took Riverrun with almost no bloodshed, despite Cersei's wishes. 

“Have I?” His voice cracked. 

“Yes.” Her voice was steady and certain. 

Jaime crumpled a bit at her faith in him. She rose and tugged him to his feet. She placed her own mug down and took his to do the same. “It's late. Come to bed, with me.”

She meant to walk them back to the bed, but suddenly Jaime's arms were around her, his face buried in the crook of her neck. She felt the wetness of tears upon her neck. Brienne ran her hand through his hair, wrapped her other arm tighter around him. 

Was now when she should say she loved him, that she would always protect him, that she would never harm him? The words, as they had been so many times in the last weeks, were on her lips, but did not pass. She had thought she had known what love was, from Renly, from Jaime himself, but the true depths and power of what she now felt for Jaime now was so much greater than she had thought possible. 

They made it to the bed and they lay clothes in each others arms, facing, open to each other. Until finally Jaime's breath steadied, his eyes full closed and he drifted off to sleep. Brienne kissed his brow, now smoothed of the worry it had held earlier. She was there to protect him now, to complete him now, to be the equal other half he had always needed.

**Author's Note:**

> I'd love to write a follow up to this, but will see if it's done by Sunday as D&D are sure to Joss my idea (quite likely with a version that fits into the larger story better).


End file.
